In the new paradigm created by the Internet and online shopping, analogies may be drawn to traditional shopping in brick and mortar businesses. In cyberspace, web browsers or web surfers play the roles of traditional customers. Websites, particularly those selling goods and/or services, play the roles of traditional stores and vendors. Call center agents, reachable either through traditional circuit-switched telephone lines or through internet telephony equipped call centers, play the roles of sales agents or clerks. In a traditional store, if a potential purchaser spent a significant amount of time examining a product or repeatedly returned to view a product, a sales clerk would typically offer to assist the potential purchaser to answer any questions. In the online shopping experience, however, requests for assistance are typically initiated not by the vendor's agents, but by the web browsing customers, with the customer typically calling a 1-800 number listed on a web page when questions arise regarding a particular good or service. This phenomena, is due in part, to the inability of online vendors to observe the browsing habits of potential customers at a website. As a result, the portion of sales revenue typically resulting from assistance offered by sales agents is lost by on-line vendors.
According, a need exists for a way in which an on-line vendor can monitor the activity of a potential website customer, while on-line.
A further need exists for a technique in which call center agents can initiate contact with a website customer while browsing a particular website.
A further need exists for the ability to determine the skill level necessary to render assistance to a particular website customer based on the web page and/or activities of the customer while online.